Hello and thank you for taking the time to read the 43rd issue of EZNews!
We highly value those members who have chosen to enable automatic renewal of their EZWxBrief membership on a monthly basis. If you haven't done so, please sign in and visit the User Profile page and click on the Renew button. By doing this, you can establish your monthly renewal with a Visa, MasterCard, or Discover credit card. This ensures that you remain connected and continue to enjoy the simplicity of EZWxBrief all year long.
For members new to EZWxBrief, you won't find EZWxBrief in the App Store or Google Play Store. For the best user experience, EZWxBrief is optimized to run as a progressive web app (PWA) and must be installed on your device which takes less than 10 seconds per device. Follow the instructions in this video or visit the 180+ page Pilots Guide for more information on how to install EZWxBrief as a PWA on all of your devices.
Coming soon...respond today...
Mark your calendars, based on many requests by attendees of the previous two classes, we are looking to offer another live class early next year. The 10-week class will be held on Monday evenings at 8 pm EST beginning January 13, 2025. This will follow on the heels of the Weather Essentials for Pilots and Skew-T Weather Essentials classes held earlier this year and focus primarily on preflight route planning using live weather guidance from the EZWxBrief progressive web app. The goal of this class is to integrate and apply all of the training found in both of these previous classes. While it is not necessary to have attended these other two classes, it will be highly beneficial to at least have attended the Weather Essentials for Pilots class which can be purchased here. If you are interested in attending this new class, please contact us and we'll be sure you are on the reminder list when we make the official registration announcement in November. Space will be limited, so get your registration in early.
NEW! Weather Essentials for Pilots: The Skew-T Edition eBook now on sale!
We have exciting news! There's a new eBook available for purchase that takes the best selling book, The Skew-T log (p) and Me: A Primer for Pilots, to a whole new level. Debuted this year at AirVenture, Weather Essentials for Pilots: The Skew-T Edition has taken the reigns from the Skew-T with Updates limited series that was offered for nearly two years and adds 150 more pages to the original Skew-T log (p) and Me eBook. This new eBook now incorporates material beyond the Skew-T diagram to include important weather topics such as air masses, low pressure areas and fronts, cloud classifications, terminal aerodrome forecasts and much more. It's now shaping up to be a basic weather book with the Skew-T diagram as the centerpiece. Given its 472 page length, we've opted to only provide this in PDF form as an eBook.
If you previously purchased the Skew-T with Updates eBook option, you already have this new eBook in your hands. An email was sent out in July with the latest update. In fact, you will continue to receive free updates to this new eBook for the next few years as it continues to evolve. For those that purchase this new eBook today, you will be notified of updates and will be able to purchase the next edition for a small fee. Before Scott retires he's hoping to document in this eBook all that he's learned about aviation weather over the last 30+ years for the benefit of general aviation pilots flying today and to those learning to fly in future generations. Your support of this effort is greatly appreciated.
"Who's Who in Aviation & Weather" YouTube series continues...
We are looking forward to bringing you the latest news and insights from the top minds in the aviation and weather industries. With a focus on weather, each month we'll feature interviews with leading industry experts on topics such as air traffic control, flight safety, forecasting, flight instruction and more. We'll also explore the latest trends and developments in these fields, and provide you with the information you need to stay ahead of the learning curve. So join us every four to six weeks as we explore the latest news and trends in these two fascinating industries.
This past month we really enjoyed chatting with Robert O. Buck who is a retired airline captain and the co-author of the best selling book, Weather Flying, Fifth Edition. We talked to Rob about his father's legacy and the advances in technology over the last several decades to increase safety. You can watch this new episode here.
Stay tuned for our next live program on Tuesday, December 3rd at 2 pm EST as we speak with Tammy Barlette who is a motivational speaker and expert in mental performance training in aviation. Now retired from the military, Lt Col Barlette has flown the T-37 Tweet, the A-10 Warthog, the MQ-1 Predator and the MQ-9 Reaper. We will talk to her about the steps general aviation pilots can take to increase their confidence through mental performance training. In January we will have Steven Green on the program. Steve is a retired airline captain and the author of Pilot Competency and Capability: Responsibilities, Strategy, and Command. He has extensive experience in accident analysis and worked in ALPA’s Inflight Icing Certification Project, as well as the Ice Protection Harmonization Working Group ARAC.
> How to watch <
The program will be hosted live on EZWxBrief's YouTube channel. If you cannot attend live, the episodes are recorded and will become available on the same channel shortly after the live broadcast ends. You can also find them in the Who's Who in Aviation & Weather playlist. The exact date and time for future episodes will be announced through this blog and will appear on the EZWxBrief YouTube community page.
More retirements of forecast guidance
In addition to the retirement of the Traditional Alphanumeric Code (TAC) AIRMET on or about January 27, 2025 as discussed in this post, the FAA and NWS are planning to retire the remaining area forecasts (FAs) issued by the Aviation Weather Center except for those in Alaska. As a follow-on to the successful retirement of six CONUS Area Forecasts (FAs) in 2017, the FAA and NWS plan to transition three OCONUS FAs to the GFA. The FA is an abbreviated, plain-language forecast of specified weather phenomena, covering a geographical area designated by the FAA and produced by NWS. The FA is used to help determine en-route weather for aviation. The Aviation Weather Center (AWC) provides equivalent or better information to the FA via the GFA at https://aviationweather.gov.
The three OCONUS FAs affected are listed below:
FACA20 (OFAMKC) for Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico;
FAGX20 (OFAGX) for Gulf of Mexico; and
FAHW31 PHFO (FA0HI) for Hawaii.
The FAs for Alaska will not be affected at this time.
A FAA-NWS joint-agency working group recommended the OCONUS FAs be transitioned to the more-modern GFA that provides improved weather information to decision-makers. The FAA recently convened a Safety Risk Management Panel (SRMP) to evaluate the proposed transition. Based on the working group recommendation and the SRMP results, the FAA has requested the NWS to transition the select OCONUS FAs. The agencies are targeting early 2025 for the transition.
The FAA once again tries to eliminate forecasters
Over the last several decades, the FAA has been trying its best to eliminate National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters and replace them with automation. The latest attempt was this past month where the FAA sought to end the contract with the NWS to close all of the Center Weather Service Units (CWSUs) effective April 1, 2025. Today, CWSUs are located at each of the FAA’s 21 Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCCs) throughout the United States. They are staffed by 84 highly trained NWS meteorologists (show above is a forecaster at the Seattle CWSU), 16 hours a day, seven days a week. Typically, the CWSU forecaster on duty works with the ARTCC Traffic Management Unit (TMU), providing two scheduled weather briefings and updates throughout the day. The CWSU forecast is used in the development of the operational plan for air traffic, including runway configurations and routing traffic around significant weather. Back in 2009 the FAA proposed to consolidate all of these forecasters into a single facility in an attempt to reduce the number of CWSUs and this was pitched to be an "improvement" for safety.
This past month, the FAA announced that it was ending a 40-year partnership with the NWS next spring, replacing all its meteorologists working at the CWSUs with new software. However, that decision was quickly replaced with the following statement from the FAA,
"The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Weather Service will continue our long-standing partnership to provide weather services to ensure the safety of the National Airspace System."
EZWxBrief v2 news
EZWxBrief v2.0.3 has been released. You can read the release notes here. The primary addition to the site is the ability to delete recent routes, recent imagery and recent airports from the EZWxBrief Dashboard. As shown below, the Dashboard will have a trash can icon for each of these recent lists. Pressing on this icon will confirm that you wish do delete all of the recent items in that list. Once confirmed, the associated recent items will be permanently removed. The only exception is for recent routes. In this case, if there is an active route (one currently rendered on the Map), it will delete all recent routes listed except for the active route which will remain in the list.
Lastly, access to Skew-T diagrams within EZWxBrief has been temporarily removed. These diagrams were being rendered through the government site, https://rucsoundings.noaa.gov. However, we have been informed that NOAA management has decreed...
"They were intended for research purposes and are not designed for operational use, such as for commercial purposes or the safety of life and property. There is no plan to restore any access to these sites; they have been permanently retired."
If you would like to voice your concern or dismay for this decision, please send an email to Jennifer Mahoney at jennifer.mahoney@noaa.gov. Ms. Mahoney is the Director of the NOAA’s Global Research Laboratory (GSL) that oversees this organization.
Given that it is extremely unlikely that NOAA will resurrect this site, we are currently working on replacing the Skew-T diagrams within the Airport Wx view with a version that will be even better. This will likely be available during the 1st quarter of 2025 at the earliest.
Please note that starting January 1, 2025, the monthly subscription price will increase to $7.99/month (currently $6.99/month) to account for increased cost in computing resources for the servers used by the EZWxBrief progressive web app. Any and all subscriptions (new and existing) will renew at this price.
Most pilots are weatherwise, but some are otherwise™
Dr. Scott Dennstaedt
Weather Systems Engineer
Founder, EZWxBrief™
CFI & former NWS meteorologist
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